Info: To read the complete City Council memo on homelessness, go to bit.ly/1pOxdw9.

City Manager Jane Brautigam's smoking ban on the municipal campus appears to have done more to change where homeless people hang out in downtown Boulder than three years of stepped-up foot patrols.

A Daily Camera analysis of municipal charges against homeless defendants over the last seven years found that citations are actually down a little from the last two years, but new offenses, including the smoking ban, have given Boulder police new tools.

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Officer Dan Bergh, who took a reporter on foot patrol along the Boulder Creek Path last week, said the smoking ban has been the biggest factor in moving people off the municipal campus.

But there is more displacement than reduction.

Just outside the ban area, at the "horseshoe" at the west end of the Boulder High School campus, about a dozen homeless people are hanging out on a recent weekday afternoon. Some are sleeping, while others engaged in raucous conversation.

Bergh said he cannot speak to how other officers do their jobs, but he tries to treat everyone with respect. Only two offenses are an automatic ticket for him — drinking in public and urinating in public.

Being loud is not illegal

On patrol, he wakes up homeless people who are sleeping to make sure they don't need to go to detox, but he also tells a young woman she needs to take down her hammock because Boulder ordinance doesn't allow people to attach anything to trees. He tells another woman she needs to put a leash on her golden retriever.

Bergh said the police frequently get calls for behavior that isn't a crime.

"People hanging out in a park in the daytime being loud," he said, as an example. "That's not illegal. If it were 12-year-olds playing ball, they wouldn't have called."

At the horseshoe, several families coming up the path veer off to avoid passing the group, but Bergh doesn't write any tickets. No one is drinking or committing any other violation that he can see.

But Chris Mitchell, a formerly homeless man who works in community outreach, said it doesn't take a ticket for people to get the message.

"Word is spreading through the community that comes through on a seasonal basis that Boulder isn't as cool as it used to be," Mitchell said. "And I think that was the city's goal."

Does that hurt the homeless people who are already here? Mitchell pauses.

"I think it does because it tells them they are not a person with rights," he said.

Consequences of criminalization

Eric Tars, an attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, said that western cities tend to have two kinds of homeless people, "the residentially challenged and the nomadically inclined."

"It's the traveling kind of folk who are more visible and out partying and drinking, and they don't necessarily want to be served," he said. "It creates the wrong image of homelessness, but when criminalization happens, it affects everyone. People imagine that it makes the community less attractive to the traveler types, and they might move on.

"But it is the residentially challenged people who deal with the consequences."

A punitive approach also raises costs for taxpayers, Tars said, as jail is much more expensive than supportive housing.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle has raised concerns that housing more prisoners on municipal violations could contribute to an existing overcrowding problem and asked that the city pay for those prisoners to be housed elsewhere — or released early — when the jail hits capacity.

The Boulder City Council will consider extending the smoking ban to other city parks and the length of the creek path later this fall. That might cause homeless people to change their habits yet again, but Deputy Police Chief Curt Johnson said the police ultimately cannot solve the problem of homelessness.

"There are plenty of laws on the books to address bad behavior," he said. "We need a more well-rounded approach."

Boulder police Officer Dan Bergh checks on Thomas Ellington — who was passed out in the "horseshoe" area near Boulder High School — during a foot patrol last week. Police say that even with stepped-up patrols, the city's smoking ban in Central Park and across the municipal campus has been most effective in moving the homeless out of that downtown area. (Mark Leffingwell / Daily Camera)

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